With her boyfriend about to be released from prison, Miss Ohio visits La Jean Beauty Parlor in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to get a little glamor into her life. It took several cans of hairspray to achieve maximum height for her beehive. Show Notes 1. According to a review at billburg.com, La Jean Beauty Parlor will have you "bowing down before the altar of rat combs and peroxide." It's old school. 2. For more on the hipster capital of America, check out Free Williamsburg. 3. "Everybody Loves My Hair," by Captain WAM of the Podsafe Music Network. 4. Search The Hair Archives for more information on the beehive.

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Location of Recording:  Union Square Subway Station (Nov. 21, 2007)From Nicola's bio: Over the last few years and 2 LPs, Nicola and her band have racked up an impressive list of rock credentials: sheâs been featured on ABC World Newsâ âMusic Under New York,â? vh1.com, âWomen Who Rockâ? magazine, and NBC News; sheâs been a National Songwriters Hall of Fame featured songwriter; she performed at David Blaineâs âDrowned Alive;â? and sheâs been heard on FM radio in a number of markets in addition to a recent mini-feature on MTVâs Music Video Awards. Her Chicks with Guitars college tour was a major success, and her myspace profile has over 127,000 hits. She and the band have been Spotlight Artists on Sonicbids, and you may have seen them featured on an ABC TV special as well as in Billboard Magazineâs âUnderground LPâ? section for Breaking Artists. Nicola's latest album, âDonât Take it Personally,â? finds her and her band at the top of their game. From the vicious attack of âMy Name Ainât Maryâ? to the relatively introspective âAlmost,â? to the thrill ride of â(5, 6, 7, 8) Hot Date,â? Nicola is in complete control. Thereâs enough fiery, fun-loving, fiercely independent attitude to blow your speakers off the wall. Her passionate, extroverted, fantastically versatile voice is the ultimate instrument for her unapologetic personality and irreverent wit.

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This is a series of images in QuickTime movie format of President John F. Kennedy's motorcade in Dallas on November 22, 1963 and of the events following his assassination.  The images are accompanied by the U.S. Army Band playing "From Sea to Shining Sea," which is also on the soundtrack from the Oliver Stone film JFK.  To view the QuickTime movie, click on the Pod icon beside the post title or on the direct download link at the bottom of the post.  In today's New York Times Op-Ed piece,"J.F.K.'s Death Re-Framed,"  Max Holland and Johann Rush offer a different perspective on the timing of Oswald's alleged shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.  They point out that the Zapruder film captures the Presidential motorcade only after it had turned onto Elm Street in Delay Plaza and quite possibly after the first shot - which the Warren Commission concluded had missed.  Oswald would only have had to fire two shots in the sequence of the Zapruder film - not three - making it more plausible that he acted alone.  For a wicked interpretation of the Warren  Commission's findings, check out the late, great comedian Bill Hicks (his act is explicit).  There was actually a game designer who wrote a PC program called JFK Reloaded and offered a reward to anyone who could exactly recreate the assassination sequence. 

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Concerned about my culinary skills, my father-in-law from South Carolina calls me and reads from an article in The Greenville News entitled, "How To Carve The Turkey." I'm still not so sure I'm ready to try carving a hulking bird.  Debbie and I will probably go to Sylvia's Soul Food Kitchen in Harlem on Thanksgiving.

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You can probably tell...I really like The Drumatics, who I heard last weekend  at Union Square.  As the mp3 begins, I'm at a  distance and walking in the subway tunnel toward the group.  I liked their sound and started recording with the Belkin TalkTune Stereo attached to my iPod.  Getting that gizzmo was the reason for my trip to the Apple Store Soho...an earlier podcast episode.Check out the review of The Drumatics at Concretebeat.

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The Drumatics are an amazing group of fusion musicians who I heard last Friday evening in the Union Square subway station in Manhattan. They combine the bucket drums of hip hop street culture with African jembe, shaker, bass drum, African dun duns and the alto sax and bass sax of jazz.   The group was formed by Bronx resident William Johnson, who has performed on the streets and in the subways of New York for over 10 years. You can find a discussion of The Drumatics on the blog Concretebeat.  Artists:  William Johnson (buckets), David Park (bass drum), Alla (jembe), Alissa (African dun duns), Joel (shaker), Welf Dorr (alto sax), Nick Gianni (baritone sax).

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On my way to the Apple Store Soho, I talk computers with a cabbie named Nick, who builds his own. I was a bit foggy on the directions, having been a big hurry as I was looking at the Google map. I had the street wrong; but Nick knew just where the Apple Store was. The fare from Parsons The New School for Design (Fifth Avenue and 13th Street) to the Apple Store at 103 Prince Street cost $8.00 including the tip.

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A few months ago, while listening to Tartanpodcast by Mark Hunter, I heard a track called "In Ohio On Some Steps," by the indie band Limbeck. My wife and I had just driven across Ohio for the first time to visit two friends from Kenyon College. It rained most of the way.  There was something about the song that captured the mood of the whole trip - a mixture of whimsy, randomness and displacement. I've been a Limbeck fan ever since.

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I came across Dark Ambient this week - an excellent ambient music podcast by Jim Butler that he launched in December 2006 and recently got picked up by PodShow.  I am a fan of this kind of music and subscribed to the feed.  Dark Ambient doesn't adhere to any sort of regular publication schedule. It looks as though one or two new tracks (usually one hour long) appear about every three months, but are worth the wait. This mp3 is the second edition of his podcast.  Genre Background: Dark ambient is a subgenre of ambient music which emerged in the 1980s and 1990s with the introduction of new synthesizer and sampling technology in the electronic music genre and other technical advances in music. Dark ambient is a very diverse genre; it is often closely linked with industrial music, noise, ethereal wave, and sometimes even black metal, yet can be free from any derivatives and connections to other genres or styles. The term is generally used as a catch-all for any form of ambient music that has dark, foreboding, ominous, or discordant overtones.

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One of the random things that makes New York City great, an abundance of musicians - many of them very good - who play on the subway platforms every day. Many times I take them for granted; but just as often I stop and listen...and contribute. I heard this solo saxaphone player on the Seventh Avenue subway platform at 14th Street.  The sound was captured with a Micromemo mp3 recorder  by XtremeMac, which I attached to my iPod Classic (formerly Video iPod: I love the way Apple relegates fairly new equipment to the ancient category).

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This is a "guitar solo" that I composed on an M-Audio Keystation 49e.  I will repeat my disclaimer of having more time on my hands than musical ability.  -- Urban Kook

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"Lullaby for  Lawyers" was written by  Steve Newman and released on his 2005 album Old Country.   Putting a lawyer in his place:"You seem to have more than the average share of intelligence for a man of your background," sneered the lawyer at a witness on the stand."If I wasn't under oath, I'd return the compliment," replied the witness.

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A group of guys in South Carolina gather around a bonfire on New Year's Eve, discussing a movie about the Ice Age and listening to the radio. Some of their children are seen and heard as they play in the vacinity. A solitary figure watches the events from a kitchen window. And, yes, in case your're wondering, that's a bass boat in the background. Just don't ask me what kind of engine.-- Urban Kook

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This is the first ambient electronic podcast of Urban Kook, which I composed on a Midi keyboard recently. I am not a musician and claim no musical ability at all, but do claim to have too much time on my hands. That said...I wasn't unimpressed with the result. I will continue to post these ambient podcast episodes from time to time in addition to the video segments I've been posting.

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From the comic mind of Jeff Kreisler comes "The Mirror," a new reality show that proves nothing is too dumb for TV. Show Notes "The Mirror" (Written and directed by Jeff Kreisler) Actors: Joseph Rocha (NASCAR guy) and Anne Teutschel (his nagging wife) Announcer: Jeff Kreisler Editor: Sean Mcgee Music: Drew Domecq

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Wanda shows me her vintage Scooby Doo salt and pepper shakers, contemplates moving into a double wide trailer and discusses the American dream of home ownership.

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Rev. Billy (Bill Talen) is a New York performance artist who has taken aim at Starbucks, which has over 300 coffee stores on the island of Manhattan alone. He believes that Starbucks has replaced vibrant neighborhood coffee shops with bland corporate clones of the same decor, the same music, the same products. Part of his mission is to call attention to the loss of those unique coffee shops in which people knew one another and made "original culture." He and his congregation - members of the Church of Stop Shopping - have done interventions at numerous Starbucks locations in New York City, protesting the corporation's culture of artificial hipness and $5.00 lattes. Although he wears an Anglican collar, Rev. Billy preaches against corporate excess with the fervor of a Pentecostal minister. Members of his Church of Stop Shopping literally invade each Starbucks protest location, occupying tables where paying customers would sit, getting cups out of trash cans and pretending to be drinking Starbucks coffee. They pair up and act out invisible comedies - fake private conversations meant to get their message across to those who overhear - based on the work of Brazilian political activist Augusto Boal. At some point, Rev. Billy enters, distributes anti-Starbucks propaganda and launches into his fiery sermon. Starbucks executives have become so disturbed by these protests that they issued a memo to all store managers entitled "What Should I Do If Rev. Billy Is In My Store?" He retaliated by publishing a book on his activities under the same title. Show Notes 1. Intro: "Dancing Chairs - Piano, " by Marty Buttwinick (Podsafe Music     Network). 2. Rev. Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping 3. Augusto Boal - Brazilian political activist 4. Starbucks

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